BPMN

BPMN (Business Process Modeling Notation) is a standard developed by the Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI). The primary goal of the BPMN effort was to provide a notation that would be readily understandable by all business users, from the business analysts who create the initial drafts of the processes, to the technical developers responsible for implementing the technology that will perform those processes, and finally, to the business people who will manage and monitor the processes. BPMN is supported with an internal model that will allow executable BPEL. Thus, BPMN creates a bridge between business process modeling and business process execution.

BPMN defines a Business Process Diagram (BPD), which is based on a flowcharting technique tailored for creating graphical models of business process operations. A Business Process Model, then, is a network of graphical objects, which are activities (i.e., work) and the flow controls that define their order of performance.

There are three basic types of business processes that you can represent in a BDM: private, abstract, and collaboration.

Private (internal) business processes

Private business processes are those internal to a specific organization and are the types of processes that have been generally called workflow or BPM processes. If Swimlanes are used, then a private business process will be contained within a single Pool. The Sequence Flow of the process is therefore contained within the Pool and cannot cross the boundaries of the Pool. Message Flow can cross the Pool boundary to show the interactions that exist between separate private business processes.

Abstract (public) processes

This represents the interactions between a private business process and another process or participant. Only those activities that are used to communicate outside the private business process are included in the abstract process. All other “internal” activities of the private business process are not shown in the abstract process. Thus, the abstract process shows to the outside world the sequence of messages that are required to interact with that business process. Abstract processes are contained within a Pool and can be modeled separately or within a larger BPMN diagram to show the Message Flow between the abstract process activities and other entities. If the abstract process is in the same diagram as its corresponding private business process, then the activities that are common to both processes can be associated.

Collaboration (global) Processes

A collaborative process shows the interactions between two or more business entities. These interactions are defined as a sequence of activities that represent the message exchange patterns between the entities. Collaboration processes may be contained within a Pool and the business interactions of the participants are shown as Lanes within the Pool. In this situation, each Lane would represent two participants and the direction of travel between them. They may also be shown as two or more abstract processes interacting through Message Flow. These processes can be modeled separately or within a larger BPMN diagram to show the Associations between the collaboration process activities and other entities. If the collaboration process is in the same diagram as one of its corresponding private business processes, then the activities that are common to both processes can be associated.

More information about BPMN is available at the BPMI site: http://www.bpmi.org.